Regarding the RP community on Jabbit

I'm posting here, rather than in the Jabbit forums, for visibility to any EU roleplayers that might have moved to the US servers.

Since this fall I have with sadness noticed a steady decline in the RP community on Jabbit. From what I have seen, roleplay on Jabbit has gone from active guilds, circles and RP channels to being somewhat of a ghost town. This is a shame, seeing as Wildstar provides a rich and vibrant world for roleplay, not only due to it's incredible housing system allowing roleplayers to create endless settings for both events and spontaneous meetings. I've heard that some of the EU roleplayers moved across the pond to Entity, which I can understand due to the active RP community there. Others might have seen the end of Lightspire as the end of EU roleplay in Wildstar while others still might have left the game altogether. Regardless, the RP community on Jabbit, to me, seems to be suffering great losses.

In the light of this my guild, the Voidrunners, have decided to host a public RP event on Jabbit in the weeks following the release of the Protostar Initiative. Our hopes are that this will provide a venue for roleplayers remaning on Jabbit or returning to the game to meet up and get to know each other and hopefully lay a foundation for further events and spontaneous roleplay. We hope to show that RP is still very much alive and it is our belief that the community will once again prosper along with the rise of the overall population.

I am sure that there are additional guilds and roleplayers on both factions doing their best to keep roleplay alive, and I hope that we can join efforts in revitalizing the community. Worst case, we get to meet up and roleplay and have a good time. Seems like a win-win to me.

I hope to see you all at the event in February, and you are more than welcome to contact me in-game if you want to get in touch with the Voidrunners IC. Until then, take care!

As most of you know, during the last couple of months we've been seeing an increasing number of new and returning players on Jabbit. And with the increased numbers of players in general comes an increased number of new and returning roleplayers. Now, that's good news, undoubtedly. However, it seems that a lot of roleplayers get the impression that RP on Jabbit is still pretty much non-existent.

Now, I know for a fact that this isn't the case and therefore I thought I'd compile my answers to the questions I hear the most, as well as give a few tips about how to get involved in the growing Jabbit RP community! Mind that some of my answers only apply to the Exile side, but Moska Nax has been kind enough to provide some Dommie info as well!

Q: Is there RP on Jabbit?A: Yes! There is! Quite a lot of it too! But no, it won't hop up in your lap. This means that you can't expect to find roleplay everywhere you look for it, and just asking "Is there RP?" ususally won't cut it.

Q: So, how do I find RP then?A: Firstly, regardless of your faction you'll want to join the LFRP channel by typing /chjoin LFRP. These channels have been around for a long time and many of the active roleplayers subscribe to them. They are also the goto-places for returning roleplayers seeing as they existed way back on Lightspire. Join and say hi! Apart from that the Exiles currently have open RP nights at the bar The Scyl (skyplot of Lyo Sunward) every Thursday and there's talk about making the Arborian Gardens the goto place for spontaneous roleplay, so you'll want to check those places out too! For the Dominion there's also the Nexus RP circle open for all roleplayers. Contact Moska Nax for an invite! Lastly, become active on this site and post your character background, storyline or ideas! This site is currently only used by the US community, but it's way better suited than the official WS forums for roleplayers to congregate. No one posted yet? Be the first to do so! Only by actually using this site can it become active among EU roleplayers again!

Q: I think you're lying. I've been around all day and I still haven't found any RP!A: Our community is growing, but it's still a ways to go to the glory days of Lightspire where you couldn't swing a stick without poking some poor roleplayers eye out. Therefore, it is not feasible to expect to find people roleplaying all the time. So what to do? Create something yourself and invite others! Set up a storyline, go to a location and ask others to come, put up contact ads here on WSRP or just wander around Thayd IC! Roleplaying is a creative process after all, it isn't a service that is being provided by a select few.

Q: Wait, open world RP? That's scary! I'm going to get trolled!A: This is the internet, there is bound to be trolls, yes. However, in my experience the WS community has been much more accepting of roleplayers than in many other MMORPG's. And either way, roleplaying is not some shameful act that should only be done in the secret safety of your housing plot. It is an ingame activity as valid as PvE or PvP and in my opinion it is equally, if not more, rewarding to both participants and bystanders. Apart from this, there are additional reasons for not confining all your roleplay to housing plots. See this thread for some good thoughts and discussions about this.

Q: Well, okay, I'll start something up myself... but first I need to finish my character background/get to 50/perfect my housing plot!A: No, stop right there. You're putting up obstacles preventing yourself from doing what you want to do: to roleplay. You don't need to have the perfect character, the nicest costume or an amazing housing plot to be able to create and have fun roleplaying. Sure, a well thought out background fleshes your character out, as does the perfect outfit or an incredibly immersive housing plot, but it's not NEEDED. Instead of having every detail of your character laid out before you start, consider starting out with what other people notices first. How your character behaves, talks and any special habits they might have. You'll probably notice that while you are roleplaying the ideas to WHY your character behaves the way they do will come flowing to you and you'll have fun at the same time! Sure, this might be a matter of preference, but while you're endlessly trying to perfect your character for their grand entrance, you might be missing out on a lot of roleplay.

Now, keep in mind that these are my personal opinions. I'm posting this here because I love Wildstar and roleplaying is an essential part of it for me. I want to see the Jabbit community continue to grow, to see people create new storylines, events and RP hotspots. I don't want people to poke their heads in, come to the faulty conclusion that RP is dead on Jabbit and then go away forever. It might ultimately be for naught, but I'm damn well gonna try to do my bit to help and I hope some of you will too.

A fine post! I do believe we shouldn't expect others to do all the work, though. RP should not be that hard to come by, in an ideal community.

Sadly I can only do so much myself, but what I can do I am willing to. Anyone here is welcome to PM me or add me in-game and become an RP friend to RP with me! I am also willing to lend Shanyra and her medical/science ship out for plots and storylines if so required.

A fine post! I do believe we shouldn't expect others to do all the work, though. RP should not be that hard to come by, in an ideal community.

Sadly I can only do so much myself, but what I can do I am willing to. Anyone here is welcome to PM me or add me in-game and become an RP friend to RP with me! I am also willing to lend Shanyra and her medical/science ship out for plots and storylines if so required.

Beyond that, well, don't be shy, come on by!

..And bring cake.

Ally would love to come visit your ship, she loves ships in general and Piglets in particular :)

Also, don't underestimate what you can do by just being active and reaching out to others!

As far as I know on the dominion side, roleplay has been pretty quiet for a while here. While we have our cast of roleplayers in the guild doing roleplay regularly, most of it has been confined to housing plots. Despite making notifications in LFRP for these public plot meetings, the events have always seemed to go unnoticed. But if we can arrange cross-faction events, roleplay will be so much easier in the open world! It would raise awareness for new roleplayers who don't know where to go for roleplay, and give them the confidence to attend when they see that others are doing it as well.

If there's a list somewhere in the forums for potential roleplay spots in the open world that aren't too populated, please link it! We may be able to one day have cross-faction roleplay at one of these spots. As for me, I'll be exploring these threads to get to know some of the other roleplayers and their stories.

Special thanks to Aliette Harkens for showing me this website, been locked up in my lab for way too long!

Thank you so much for giving a bit of info on the Dominion side of things. Am I to understand you have a LFRP channel there as well? Is it a chat channel or a circle? Do you guys host any regular events that are open to public? Asking this so I can update my post above so that it can be a goto-post for both Exiles and Dommies on how to get into the community :)

As you know I think cross-faction RP sounds really exciting and we'll hopefully be able to set something up really soon! I would urge to you send any new and existing roleplayers this way to sign up and get involved with the community as I think that it's easier to get involved when you know there are acctually people around. Apart from that, a positive and encouraging attitude goes a long way :) We've had several RP newcomers in the Runners who are now very engaged in their characters and storylines. As you point out it is as important to foster a healthy environment for new potential roleplayers as much as for returning ones.

I don't think there's a list of good open world locations yet, but it sounds like a great idea. That should be something that both EU and NA roleplayers could collaborate on too! Start up at thread, maybe in the "Wildstar and Roleplay" section and fill in the ones you know about and I'm sure others will join in!

Yep, over on dominion we have a circle called Nexus RP which isn't restricted to any guilds. If you want to contact other roleplayers there, feel free to toss me a request and I'll invite you. Also, LFRP is a global chat channel in the dominion, which you can add by typing it as a custom channel using 'add new' in the channel settings.

As for locations for open world roleplay, I'll gather some screenshots to start it off if there aren't any threads for it already.